On October 9, 2019, President Donald Trump announced his
intention to appoint Amanda Wood Laihow to serve as the
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission's (OSHRC)
second commissioner. That addition will give the commission its
first quorum in five months and enable it to decide the cases
pending before it.
Laihow currently serves as the chief counsel to the
commission's chair, James J. Sullivan, Jr., his primary legal
advisor. Before she joined the commission's staff, she served
as director of labor and employment policy for the National
Association of Manufacturers, where many in the employer community
became acquainted with her as an advocate for business in
significant issues under the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)
Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations
Act, and employment discrimination laws. Before joining the private
sector, Laihow served as deputy general counsel for the U.S.
Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental
